NaNoWriMo: Plot

Making up your plot is one of the easiest things you can do, especially if you’re starting with it first. Plotting comes in three stages, brainstorming, organizing, and finishing touches.

First, the brainstorming. A lot of people like to do this in different ways. You could use our brainstorming worksheet, which you get from following us with email, or you could just write everything down. Write down all of your ideas, the big and the small, and try to focus things that you want to happen in this book. No matter what make sure you keep all of your ideas together, as that will help with step two.

The second step is organizing. There are a few ways you could do this. I recommend opening a word document or using notecards, anything that allows you to move things around. Then mark all of your big ideas from step one and put them in order. Make sure with these ideas you have a beginning, middle, and end (or something similar to one.) Once you have those, add in your smaller ideas.

The last step is the finishing touches. Really look at this outline you’ve built. Do certain things skip from one thing to another? This is the time where you fill in the blanks or add in small details you can the reader to notice at this point. Maybe even making notes like how this is supposed to change your main character.

Follow these three steps and just like that, you have a plot! All it took was brainstorming, organizing, and adding some finishing touches. Next time we’ll go even deeper, with scene planning. Until then, keep up the good work!